Martin Margiela’s Archive Heads to Paris Auction in a Rare Designer Sale
Martin Margiela is parting with 195 lots from his personal archive in Paris, in a sale that auction houses say is unprecedented: the first time a living creator has directly collaborated with an auction house to offer a personal archive. Maurice Auction and Kerry Taylor Auctions will present the collection on July 9 during Paris couture week, with an estimated total of up to €412,000 ($479,000).
The sale reaches across Margiela’s career and private life, mixing early design material with garments, accessories, and objects from his working environment. One of the most closely watched lots is a pair of Tabi ankle boots from a 1991 exhibition at Paris’s Galliera Museum, where visitors were invited to write on the floors and walls. They did, and the boots were marked as well. The one-of-a-kind pair carries the sale’s top estimate, at €30,000 to €50,000 ($35,000 to $58,000).
Other highlights point to the designer’s stripped-back visual language. A white cotton smock, size 52, worn by Margiela and his staff around the turn of the century, is marked with paint and signed “Martin” inside the collar. It is estimated at €6,000 to €10,000 ($7,000 to $11,600). A rotary telephone from his 11th Arrondissement headquarters, with his number written on it in black Sharpie, is estimated at €3,000 to €5,000 ($3,500 to $5,800).
The auction opens with 60 Hermès outfits, bags, accessories, and shoes that belonged to Léa Bouchet, Margiela’s mother, from the years of his 1997 to 2003 tenure at the house. The top lot from her wardrobe is a dark brown calfskin bag, which Margiela has described as a “rare piece of exceptional craftsmanship,” and which carries an estimate of €4,000 to €6,000 ($4,600 to $6,900).
The archive also reaches back to the beginning. The first dossier dates to 1987 and was stolen on a train before being recovered by police a year later. That detail gives the sale a sharper edge than a conventional fashion auction: it is not only a dispersal of objects, but a public reckoning with the material traces of a designer whose influence has long been felt in fashion, museums, and the collector market alike.
